The Violet Hour
by abstraction
Summary: But in the dark, they can hear the sounds. New moons, when risen, force all the women to shield their children, while the men restlessly guard their homes. A small, quiet horror story with Nine and Rose.


Somewhere in England there is a quiet village, north of nothing, and it is beginning to whisper. It is outlined by dark forests, sweetly damp and heavy from a constant sea of fog. Everything is hazy, shrouded—light glows, ethereal, wherever they may find it. The days are often calm, and warm, and remains a small haven for them to live out their hours. But in the dark, they can hear the sounds. New moons, when risen, force all the women to shield their children, while the men restlessly guard their homes. Every few months, one of their own go missing. First, the baker, in the sleepy dusk of autumn. Then, the blacksmith's apprentice, in the white silence of a winter night. But then—a child.

They know something is out there, something that preys on them in the darkness. And though they have tried to find it, to chase it away or to end its reign, there is no sign of it. In tentative moments of fright and bravery, the children whisper to one another about monsters, creatures made of moonlight or silence, an invisible thing that roams their village in the dark, eating them.

They cannot fight it, but they never stop trying.

Far away, hundreds of years in their future, a man in a dark jacket sighs in exasperation to a blonde at his side. "But _why_ can't we visit Stonehenge?" she says, staring up at him. His arms are crossed, his face belying his interest in her hand reaching to untangle them. "Please, Doctor?"

He can feel that this is a losing fight, but he keeps his gaze stalwart somewhere in the distance— he doesn't want to look like a pushover. But when he glances down to see her searching face, he relents, probably too quickly. He grins. "Alright, then, Stonehenge! Popped in once, turn of the century: those Pagans knew how to throw a _party_."

Rose giggles, face flushed like a summer strawberry, as he leads her into the TARDIS.

.

.

.

"Hmm," he says. His ship has faded into a deep forest, trees with thick branches tangling themselves above this head. Beyond them, a small village nests in a sleepy hollow, and the sky is beginning to darken. Rose steps out just behind him, peers to where he's looking and frowns. "Unless I'm mistaken," she says in a voice that breaks no argument, "This isn't Stonehenge."

She's taken her place beside him, sidling against him unconsciously, and the warmth from her shoulders and the length of her arms begin seeping into his coat. Into other places too, inside his chest, but there are some things he doesn't let himself think about. Instead, he turns to her with a manic grin. "Nope!"

Before she knows, he is yards ahead of her, bounding down to the cluster of houses. She laughs and follows, filled with his excitement. She's not so bothered about a bunch of rocks sticking up in a field anymore. When she catches up, her arms thread through his, even though she has to skip to keep up with his long strides.

They are immediately shunned. Rose, in her jeans and long-sleeved tee, is too opinionated, too challenging and bold and modern. The Doctor is too strange. "I'm here to _help_," he tries to say. But each of the villagers, in turn, shut their doors to him. Things like this have happened before—planets where having two legs is obscene, where white-blonde hair is a sign of witchcraft even— but still they had been able to crash the party, convince them of their resourcefulness, defeat some great evil. The Doctor feels nothing of this now. Instead, there is a feeling he can't quite put his finger on, a shift in the air that prickles the back of his neck. Beside him, Rose takes in the quiet, senses the uncertainty in her companion, and feels still something else disconcertingly familiar out there—in the trees.

"Doctor," she half-whispers as they go to investigate the forests. "Doctor, there's really something wrong here. I can feel it."

He scoffs, as if she has nothing to worry about, that she is just a silly human with silly human fears. But she remains unconvinced.

They explore the dark between the trees, even as night falls around them. The Doctor takes readings on the sonic screwdriver. Rose tries to keep her footing on the uneven ground, even as roots that climb above ground threaten to trip her. After a while, the Doctor wants to go back to the TARDIS, and he's telling her something, but she is not listening, because that is the moment when she feels it.

Her nerves are alight. She is boiling and freezing in the same moment, goosebumps rise on her skin and there are small beads of sweat making her hair stick to the back of her neck. It's as if she has been shocked by some electric current, and her head begins to feel strange: as if it swelling and collapsing, growing heavier and filling with cotton wool. She can't hear anything, not even the Doctor, but she can feel his gaze. She doesn't want to be afraid, but she can't turn her head. She's frozen, or maybe she is too afraid to move, and she begins to worry, a little desperately, that the gaze she feels is not the Doctor's, but of something else entirely. Something invisible, on the very edge of her senses, barely able to glimpse. She thinks she can see a dark shadow, but _everything_ is dark. Something darker then— something absent.

Fear is swelling from her stomach, her lungs, her limbs. She is trembling with it now, and she can feel something pressing down on her, an imperceptible force weighing her down, and somehow she can still feel the slight sting of tears beginning to prickle in the corners of her eyes. "Doctor," she tries to say. "_Please,_ Doctor. _Help_." She doesn't know if she's said the words or if she's only thought them, but the result is the same. A strong hand steadies the small of her back, and the pressure begins to lift. Warmth floods her system from where he holds her, and she can feel the cold dwindling, until it's gone. She tries to breathe, but it comes out as a gasp.

"It's okay, Rose," he says, but she knows it isn't. His tone is grave, and angry. Her head is still swimming a little and she looks up, trying to clear it. The Doctor is saying something—but his voice is so full of quiet fury, of promised violence, that she knows it isn't meant for her. She wants to say that everything is fine now, to tell him that she's okay, that they can go, they can solve this from inside the TARDIS, or in the village; but instead she says, "Storm's coming."

Clouds have gathered above them, dark and heavy, promising a torrential downfall. She hears the sonic screwdriver's hum of vibration, and then a scream, high and blood-curdling, something that reaches inside her so fiercely that it makes her tense up. It's nails on a chalkboard, the screech of metal on metal, the grating pitch of a door hinge—all of them, and none of them, something so intense and furious she can't bear to listen, and she can feel herself ready to scream. Then there is nothing. Dead silence, and just the Doctor, lowering his arm, placing the sonic in his coat pocket. "C'mon, Rose," he says, and she lets him guide her in the direction of the TARDIS.

She tries to ask him about what it was that they encountered in the dark, once they are in the safety of the console room, and she half-understands when he explains it. A different plane, he says, and a creature of sustained electromagnetic frequency which paralyzes its victims, and then drains them. She doesn't ask for any details, and he doesn't offer any. She is eager to leave and tries to poke fun at him to get him out of his pensive state. He gives her a laugh, more for her benefit than his, but presses buttons and pulls levers all the same, guiding them elsewhere. "How do you feel about the 40s?" he asks.

The tiny English village is not visited by their creature again, even though they keep a constant vigil. And as the years pass, and the generations tell their stories, the thing in the dark becomes a legend. A quiet horror story to make the children stay in their beds at night.


End file.
